lie doggo

From lie + doggo, referring to the tendency of dogs to lie quietly and sleep lightly. Doggo is probably from dog +‎ -o (colloquializing suffix).^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /laɪ ˈdɒɡəʊ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /laɪ ˈdɔɡoʊ/, (cot–caught merger) /-ˈdɑ-/

• Audio (General American):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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• Rhymes: -ɒɡəʊ
• Hyphenation: lie dog‧go

lie doggo (third-person singular simple present lies doggo, present participle lying doggo, simple past lay doggo, past participle lain doggo)

1. (intransitive, slang) To lie quiet and still in order to avoid detection; also (by extension), to stay hidden by being discreet and not drawing attention; to keep a low profile, to lie low.

   Synonym: play doggo

   • 1893, Rudyard Kipling, “A Conference of the Powers”, in Many Inventions, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 29:

     I used to send out spies, and act on their information. As soon as a man came in and told me of a gang in hiding, I'd take thirty men with some grub, and go out and look for them, while the other subaltern lay doggo in camp.

   • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XV, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, page 85:

     Do you think he's done something that we don't know about, and is lying doggo on account of the police?

   • 1926, Rudyard Kipling, “The Janeites”, in Debits and Credits, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 142:

     [I]f we lay doggo where we was, Jerry might miss us, though he didn't seem to be missin' much that evenin'. […] Lyin' doggo was our best chance.

   • 1946, Rebecca West [pseudonym; Cicily Isabel Fairfield], “Greenhouse with Cyclamens I”, in A Train of Powder, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, published March 1955, →OCLC, section 6, pages 56–57:

     The two old foxes had got away again. They had tricked and turned and doubled on their tracks and lain doggo at the right time all their lives, which their white hairs showed had not been brief; and they had done it this time too.

   • 1984 December 17, Craig Brown, “Lucan Everywhere”, in New York, volume 17, number 50, New York, N.Y.: New York Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 28, column 2:

     "I will lie doggo for a bit," wrote the seventh earl of Lucan [John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan] to a family friend shortly after he had murdered his children's nanny, mistaking her, in the dark, for his wife. That was ten years ago, and the earl—dead or alive—has lain doggo ever since.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, “Bilocations”, in Against the Day, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 631:

     We appreciate your need to lie doggo for a bit.